Construction stopped getting more productive because site work cannot be centralised the way manufacturing can. Klein and Thompson relay that homes per construction worker rose as fast as cars per auto worker from 1935 to 1970, that construction output per worker then fell while manufacturing's rose about nine-fold, and that builders stay small because each parcel's rules, groups and relationships must be negotiated anew. The physical inference (Astra's): abundance arrives fastest in goods made in one place and shipped (panels, batteries, factory-built reactor modules) and slowest in things fixed to a site (lines, rail, housing), so a builder should move work off the site wherever physics allows; the site-bound remainder is where the bottleneck will sit.

Evidence 3 passages

groundsAbundance, Ezra Klein, Derek Thompson
A construction worker in 2020 produced less than a construction worker in 1970, at least according to the official statistics.
groundsAbundance, Ezra Klein, Derek Thompson
it's a new phenomenon, a new world, not a historical inevitability.
groundsAbundance, Ezra Klein, Derek Thompson
A manufacturing plant can locate in one place and sell everywhere. Builders have to negotiate through the regulations and interest groups and political relationships of each parcel of land they work on individually.

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